It's Eurovision without the voting, the X Factor final without the local mayors whooping into Stacey Solomon's face, the jubilee flotilla without crowds of people scowling in the rain. (Or so organisers hope). Tonight's Olympic opening ceremony is going to be brilliant.

Or at least it will be, so long as you do it correctly. Trust me – if you approach the opening ceremony incorrectly, you're in for a world of pain. You'll drop off halfway through and wake up on your sofa at 3am with a drool-covered remote control embedded into your face and a vague recollection of Sue Barker haunting your dreams. This is why I've compiled a brief list of instructions for you. Stick to them, and Olympic heaven will be yours.

Prepare well

The BBC's coverage of the opening ceremony starts at 7pm and doesn't finish until 12:30am. That's five and a half hours. Don't forget to stay active for as long as you can before it begins, to drink lots of water and to move around as much as possible during the ceremony, maybe by mimicking the dancers or decanting all your Pepsi into old Coke cans so as not to offend any sponsors.

Ignore the bit with the athletes

When people talk about the Beijing opening ceremony, what do they always mention? The levitating rings? Yes. The millions of perfectly syncronised drummers? Yes. The really long bit in the middle where all of the athletes competing in the Olympics trundled around the stadium really slowly in what basically amounted to single file? No. Be honest – on television it is always the least essential part of the ceremony, and you'd do well to avoid it completely. Yes, you'll miss Chris Hoy carrying a flag, but everyone knows what Chris Hoy looks like. He's the man from all the Bran Flakes adverts, right?

Forget the storyline

On paper, the opening ceremony will be the realisation of Danny Boyle's grand vision – an epic opera about a land recovering from its industrial legacy. Who knows whether that will translate to your television screen. But if not – don't worry: even if the concept goes out the window within a minute or two, we'll still have a load of people in silly costumes charging about and flapping their arms around a lot in an entertaining manner.

Be social

Look, you're not going to make it on your own. The ceremony was designed as a communal experience, so you'll need company. Ideally this company will be real-life and tangible, but if that's not possible you can always machine-gun out your pithy string of observations on Twitter. Failing that, you can anthropomorphise a volleyball like Tom Hanks did in Castaway. He'll appreciate your bon mots, even if nobody else will.

Drinking games

The traditional response to televised spectaculars looks rather dangerous in this case – the ceremony is on TV for five and a half hours, after all – so proceed with caution. You'll also need a lot of booze if you're going to drink whenever the words "glorious", "spectacle", "majestic" or "pinnacle" are used, whenever Huw Edwards looks vaguely like he's losing the will to live, whenever a wacky Fearne Cotton-alike presents a kooky segment from backstage, whenever one of the farm animals defecates on camera, whenever anyone struggles to pronounce the name of a foreign athlete and – just to promote responsible drinking – whenever the Queen looks visibly happy to be there. You're probably safe with that last one.

There. Now you can enjoy the Olympic opening ceremony the way it was meant be enjoyed – begrudgingly, on a sofa, possibly half drunk. It's how Danny Boyle meant you to watch it.